The Battle

by Karuna Riazi

  “Even if they’re programmed, it’s so awful!” Ahmad protested. “They look so real, and they look so sad.”

  He thought of Madame Nasirah, of the desperate hope in her eyes.

  As beautiful as Paheli looked, it seemed as though it was just as miserable for its inhabitants as it was for him and Winnie. Determination flowed through him. “We have to win this game. We have to change things.”

  T.T. seemed distracted from the conversation, though, his nose twitching as he examined the buildings.

  “There’s a lot here I don’t recognize, thanks to the last game and the destruction Paheli took from that,” T.T. explained. “I don’t like to dwell on how the Architect might have achieved it, but he used the MasterMind’s ability to code in order to have bodies for souls to be harnessed to.”

  “So the MasterMind, what’s her story?” Vijai Bhai asked, rubbing his chin curiously.

  The mouse snarled in disgust. “My memory doesn’t go back far enough to settle upon the moment when the Architect allied himself with her,” T.T. said. “But it has been a particularly difficult period for the people of Paheli. Familiar landscapes have been tweaked and rearranged to near unrecognition. She toys with all of us, with this world. She’s made the city her pet.”

  Ahmad was distracted for a moment by a group of boys playing a game. They roared and rumbled as they threw down what appeared to be animal knuckles and exchanged cards with sideshow attractions emblazoned on them. One tossed down a card bearing the infamous Sand Shark, another a fierce-looking man chewing off bites from a metal pole.

  “Wow,” Winnie said. “They look terrifying.”

  “Ah, yes,” T.T. said grimly. “They used to be one of the finest attractions in the district of Lailat. It was a place of eternal night and endless carnivals. But, in spite of all the fun that you could have there, it was still one of the poorest areas of Paheli. It was still disposable.”

  Vijay Bhai whirled around. “What do you mean disposable?”

  “What happened to it?” Ahmad asked tentatively.

  T.T. looked away sadly, tugging at his whiskers.

  “Another loss for the sake of the city’s survival.”

  Ahmad hadn’t even realized how fast Vijay Bhai could move until this moment. He rushed forward, grasping T.T. by the shoulders. T.T. squeaked in alarm.

  “Easy, easy, on the fur! And the bones! I’m a delicate creature, you know.”

  “Please,” Vijay Bhai gritted out. “Tell me what happened to Lailat. That was my home district—as close to a place that belonged to me that this game would ever provide. Where is it now? What did this MasterMind do to Lailat?”

  T.T. looked between their anxious faces.

  “You know what?” he finally said. “I think it would be best to show you.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  T.T. LED THE KIDS and Vijay Bhai down a broad avenue. At first, it looked like all the others they had explored: beautiful shops and kiosks boasting silk scarves that shifted between patterns, or rocket-powered sneakers. But as they continued, it got narrower and narrower.

  And that wasn’t the only change.

  “Why is it getting so dark?” Winnie wondered out loud. “I mean, it’s already been dark this whole time.”

  She was right. There was nothing left of the New York City afternoon they started out with.

  “Oh, you haven’t seen the true dark yet,” T.T. announced ominously. “It surrounds Paheli constantly. Paheli was never a happy city, a proud city, but before it has had its bright moments of hope. It no longer feels that way. Wait just a moment.”

  Then, as though T.T.’s words had prompted it, the entire sky fell, descending upon them in one abrupt fell swoop.

  Winnie shrieked.

  Ahmad found himself sucking for air. It felt as though the musty, woolen layers of an unshaken winter blanket were pressing down on him.

  The entire sky had collapsed on top of them like a dismantled circus tent. And rather than merely crushing them—pinning them down with shattered poles and weighed fabric—it had managed to work its way into their lungs and was determined to smother every inch possible.

  Then it stopped, just as abrupt, as though his futile struggling against nothing but the atmosphere and Winnie’s weak whimpers beside him had kicked back the covers.

  “That’s the last of it,” T.T. said, his voice echoing like he was speaking to them through a long tunnel.

  “I find that it helps if you keep your eyes closed for a few minutes,” he continued. “It won’t make a difference in some ways. There’s a tenderness behind your lids that won’t be shared with the rest of the shadowed world. Take advantage of it for the moment. Breathe.”

  Ahmad felt calloused, warm fingers clasp his. Winnie. He squeezed two beats—I’m here—and felt her squeeze back—I know.

  They both breathed. Ahmad could hear Vijay Bhai, too, exhaling heavily behind them.

  “Wow,” he rasped. “I don’t remember that from before.”

  Ahmad could feel the heaviness leaving his lungs. He sucked the air greedily, letting it fill him up like a balloon.

  “That suffocation? Remember that feeling,” T.T. said. “This is how it will feel if you lose. And now, stick together and hold hands. The path is getting narrower here.”

  They walked on in silence.

  After a few moments, though, Winnie gasped.

  “Wait, what is that up ahead?”

  There was a gradual but increasing shimmer of light. As they moved toward it, it expanded outward, and by the time they stepped into the middle of it, it was as though they were in a diamond mine.

  “Wow,” Ahmad gasped, throwing his hand up in front of his eyes.

  They were in what appeared to be a large, empty room. Every side was a blindingly white wall, and there were white tiles underneath.

  Winnie clung to his arm. “What is this?”

  T.T.’s voice echoed from ahead of them. “Keep coming, right up to here. It’ll be easier in a moment.”

  Ahmad squinted as they moved through an archway. For a moment, the light was directly in his eyes and he couldn’t see a thing.

  And then, he gasped, stunned.

  “What is this place?”

  “What remains of Lailat,” T.T. said hollowly. “The district of dreams.”

  Vijai Bhai stopped and stared, his face shattered like a broken mirror, his breath ragged and torn.

  It was a sandy wasteland, dotted with blown-over tents and abandoned houses. Well, “houses” was maybe too nice of a word. They were more like sheds, formed with flyaway pieces of wood and tin. A low, mournful wind rolled over the terrain, brushing up against their cheeks like it was the first suggestion of warmth and company it had in a while.

  Seeing what was all around them, Ahmad was sure it was.

  “This is the district of dreams?” Winnie repeated. “It looks more like the type of place you’d see in a nightmare.”

  “It wasn’t always this way,” Vijay Bhai said softly behind her. He knelt down, letting the sand slide through his fingers. “There was a carousel, and a man who sold liquid moonlight. On some nights, there would be fireworks. On others, if you listened, you could hear the desert singing to you.”

  “So why get rid of it?” Winnie asked. “If it was such a wonderful place?”

  “It was a wonderful place, but not in the Architect’s eyes.” Vijay Bhai shook his head. “The majority of the inhabitants were poor people. They didn’t care to bow and scrape and beg him for more than what they had, and I think he wanted them to. He didn’t like the fact that they managed to be so happy when they didn’t depend on him.”

  “I’m surprised any of this is still here,” T.T. called behind Ahmad as he waded through the sand toward one of the tents. As he drew closer, he could see gaudy stripes and tattered sheets of what must have been posters before. Was it one of those sideshow exhibitions those boys earlier had on their game? “The MasterMind unraveled most of this from the code qu
ite early on, with the Architect’s blessing.”

  Ahmad lifted one of the limp flaps of paper. On the back, an animated drawing of a bodybuilder scowled and shook his fist, but something about the movement was defeated: almost like he was going through the motions without any real anger behind it.

  “It’s odd to call it a blessing,” Vijay Bhai said distantly. It didn’t seem like he was speaking to any of them at all, staring out with clenched fists over the wasteland. “It seems more like a curse. All of this was so beautiful, and look at it now.”

  “It’s terrible,” Ahmad whispered. “This is terrible.”

  It hadn’t sunk in until now, in spite of all the MasterMind’s jeering and what they heard of the Architect’s malice and temper tantrums. But now it did: They were dealing with people who could care less about other lives, whether they were computer-generated or not. If it didn’t fit in with their plans, it wasn’t worth valuing.

  That could be this dark, dim corner of Paheli, or the wide, bustling world Ahmad knew: his beloved city, and everything that lived in it.

  As though reading his thoughts, Winnie burst out, “This won’t happen to New York City. We won’t let it!”

  “Brave words,” an unfamiliar voice rasped from nearby. The words pelted against their ears like tossed pebbles, and they all lurched to attention.

  “Who was that?” Ahmad gasped.

  Vijay Bhai rested a hand at his side, as though he expected to find a sword or dagger hanging there. “Yes, who was that? Answer now.”

  “It’s been a while, balloon man,” the voice said.

  A shadow unfolded from next to one of the collapsed tents.

  It took Ahmad a moment to realize it wasn’t a billowing fold of cloth, but a man: a small sad shade of a man, thin from his head to his shins. His face was drawn and pale, and his lips looked a bit too red, as if the wind had been smacking them like an open palm.

  He looked like he had one foot in the grave. Or like he’d perhaps recently crawled out of it.

  “Well, well, well,” Vijay Bhai muttered, lowering his arms. “Mr. Titus Salt. What are you doing out here?”

  “Titus Salt?” Winnie asked cautiously. “The guy you were looking for before?”

  “He was the mind behind Paheli,” Vijay Bhai said, not taking his eyes away from the approaching man. “Every gear went through his hands before it became part of the city.”

  “Still do, whether that upstart girl likes it or not,” Titus Salt said. He spat over his shoulder toward a sand dune. Winnie winced.

  “By that upstart, you mean . . . ,” Ahmad started.

  Titus waved a hand. “I have no time for whatever title she dreamed up for herself. She and the spoiled little master—sorry, our Architect, as if he ever knew what it meant to see this city built from the foundation up and know where everything was twisted and corked and set—may think they own this city, but I still am closest to its heart.”

  Ahmad realized the man was holding something. It was a small, golden gear. As he watched, Titus absently scratched its grooves, the way an old lady would groom her cat’s ears. The gear actually seemed to shift in his grasp, like it was enjoying it.

  It was creepy.

  “The city doesn’t seem to run on your gears anymore,” Vijay Bhai said. “So why are you still lingering here?”

  “She tried once to get me out of the code,” Titus said, walking heavily toward an overturned barrel and sitting down on it. “She failed. As much as that boy can be a milksop, he knows what I mean in this city. My name, like that woman Nasirah’s, is an important part of the game. It’ll turn up at some point, and because of that, I’ve stayed rooted in here.”

  He looked around himself with disgust.

  “What a shoddy job. It’s taken days just to undo whatever she plucked out. Probably when she realizes I’ve restored it to this point, she’ll just come in and wreck it all over again. But I feel I’ve made my point.”

  “You . . . restored this?” Ahmad asked tentatively. He didn’t see anything that looked like it had been cleaned up, much less brought back to the old glory that Vijay Bhai seemed to seek in every dusty corner and destroyed stall.

  Titus Salt gave him a withering stare. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Vijay Bhai broke in again. He waved a hand backward, as though indicating the Paheli they had left behind. “I don’t understand how any of that works out there. But I do understand that the world I knew, that I grew up in, has been demolished. There’s not a familiar face to be seen out there. So how are you—”

  Titus Salt reached out and grabbed his wrist, fast as a snake striking in a nature documentary. Winnie shrieked.

  “What are you doing?”

  Titus Salt didn’t pay her any attention. His gaze was fixed on Vijay Bhai.

  “There are loyalties in Paheli, boy,” he whispered. “You know as well as I do. When you’re loyal, it does not go unnoticed. When you do your part in the game, you are more than a mere pawn. You are a cog in the gear. You keep it rolling. And those who need that gear to roll along won’t forget that you deserve the oil as much as that gear.”

  Ahmad stared at him, confused. What did all of that mean? Was he talking about the Architect?

  Vijay Bhai, though, had gone absolutely pale.

  Titus Salt gave a terrible grin up into his face.

  “It is not the Architect’s world alone,” he rasped. “Or have you forgotten who brought you here?”

  Swiftly, faster than Ahmad’s eyes could track, Vijay Bhai snatched back his wrist.

  “You’re playing a dangerous game, Titus Salt,” he whispered, and Ahmad had never heard his uncle so angry. “I hope you realize that.”

  Titus Salt was still giving that horrible, horrible smile. “Aren’t we all, young balloon man?” He cackled. “Aren’t we all?”

  Without another word, Vijay Bhai turned on his heel and started walking back in the direction they came from.

  “Wait, is that it?” Winnie called after him. “But what about your balloons?”

  T.T., who had been entirely silent, blinked rapidly.

  “T.T.?” Ahmad asked anxiously. “What did all of that mean?”

  “I’m not quite sure,” the mouse squeaked softly. “But we need to move on now. This place makes me nervous when it’s properly lit.”

  Ahmad turned to follow him as he scampered away but glanced one more time at Titus Salt. The man was crooning at the gear in his arms as though it was a baby, tramping over the sand toward one of the tents.

  A shudder ran down Ahmad’s spine, and he rushed to catch up with his friends.

  “Vijay Bhai, what was that about?” he asked anxiously once they were back out on the main avenue. “What did he mean about the gears and the oil and . . .”

  Vijay Bhai tapped Ahmad’s head with his knuckles.

  “Just an old man’s ravings, kiddo,” Vijay Bhai said with a grin. “Don’t worry about it. I forgot how unhelpful that old creep could be.”

  But his smile looked strained.

  In the dark, once they got back to the car, they fumbled in the glove box to find rather lukewarm rotis and perfectly charred kabobs. A gift from Madame Nasirah, no doubt. They pinched off the bread half-heartedly and shared a skewer before nestling together.

  They didn’t intend to sleep.

  The Minaret would surely sound at some point.

  But it didn’t.

  Restless and fearful, they stayed awake, waiting for it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE HISS OF THE Minaret slid down Ahmad’s ear canal like a droplet of water. He awoke, trying to shake it out. He accidentally thwacked Winnie with an errant arm as he wiggled. She shot up, a groan on her lips.

  “Ouch! Ahmad!”

  “Sorry! But didn’t you hear that?”

  Ahmad blinked, feeling disoriented. The last thing he remembered, he had been trying to clear his mind from Vijay Bhai and Titus Salt’s confusing conve
rsation by distinguishing the programmed stars from what might have been layers of the real world—his world. It was unsettling to him how readily he was forgetting the actual sky. Not that there were many stars visible at all from Manhattan, where the city lights outshone them.

  He remembered the blanket, and T.T.’s whistling snores, and staring until his eyes ached toward the distant Minaret, willing it to blaze with cold green flames. But now, there was dry earth under his hands.

  Also, it was oppressively warm.

  He sat up straight. Winnie did too, her eyes wide. They were in the middle of a jungle, bristling with garishly green foliage and tangled undergrowth.

  The branches of a tall banyan swayed in the breeze, the pixel surfaces shifting with shadows in a way that made them seem real. There were bizarre trees nearby too, trees with trunks that glittered, as though they were injected with the genes of some deep-sea jellyfish, and had leaves shifting through every color imaginable.

  “Great. Just great,” Ahmad muttered, trying to smooth down his sleep-mussed hair.

  Winnie’s eyes were wide. “How did this happen? We were in the city!”

  “I guess the Architect didn’t want to wait for us to get here on our own time.”

  Apparently, they had slept right through the Minaret’s call. The countdown clock was already sliding backward through livid red numbers above their head.

  “What? That is so unfair!” Winnie finally seemed to be awake. “Wait, where is T.T.? And your uncle?”

  They were nowhere to be found.

  And there was nothing left of the previous level. The game had shifted its world completely, folding the outlines of the dock into a path through the dense underbrush. Only the boat remained, as out of place as shorts in a snowstorm.

  But at the end of the path, something stood, flickering in the first rays of daylight. A person, watching and waiting.

  Not the MasterMind, or even T.T. It was a boy with high arched brows, an imperious smirk, and dark-circled eyes.

  The Architect himself.

  “You!” Ahmad gasped.

  “Well, I’m pleased to see that you’ve made it this far,” the Architect said.